HR professionals within organizations have given personality assessments to potential employees for many years. I was asked to take a personality assessment for a pharmaceutical sales job in 1987. The changes I have noticed since that time include the type and frequency of personality tests given. What also may be trending is the fact that leaders of schools have become more interested in personality assessments. In the Wall Street Journal article Business Schools Know How You Think, but How Do You Feel, author Melissa Korn explained, “Prospective MBA students need to shine by showing emotional traits like empathy, motivation, resilience, and dozens of others.” Schools may be interested in these traits because organizations value these traits. Korn also explained, “Measuring EQ-or emotional intelligence quotient-is the latest attempt by business schools to identify future stars.”

I find this trend to be particularly interesting because I teach business, I am a qualified Myers Briggs instructor, a certified EQ-i instructor, and I wrote my dissertation on the relationship between emotional intelligence and sales performance. I have also witnessed that online schools have placed more importance on personality assessments. Many of my first-year students must take a Jung-like personality test. Many of my undergraduate and graduate business students have to assess their EQ.

I think it is important for these personality preference and emotional intelligence issues to be addressed in online courses. Some of the things that may hurt a graduate’s chance of obtaining is job include having poor self-assessment skills, poor interpersonal skills, and a lack of concern for how they are perceived by others.

When I was in pharmaceutical sales, they rated us each year on our concern for impact. It was such an important part of what they believed made us successful in the field, that there were consequences to poor judgment and rude behavior. In the book, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, there is a chapter regarding concern for impact, as well as one for Myers Briggs MBTI, Emotional Intelligence, DISC, and many other personality assessments that may help young adults in the workplace. One of the universities for which I teach requires students to read this book in a foresight course.

It is important for online students to learn about these assessments because employers use them. Some personality traits stay with us throughout our lives. The MBTI is an example of an assessment that determines preferences that may not change. This assessment may be helpful to students who are not sure about career paths. Other assessments like the EQ-i determine emotional intelligence levels. The good news about emotional intelligence is that it may be improved. Marcia Hughes has written several books about how to improve EQ in the workplace. The savvy online students will work on developing their EQ and understanding personality preferences before they graduate. By being proactive, students may have a better chance of being successful in a career that matches their personality preferences.

QuantMethod is a site that offers ways to help companies market to customers based upon understanding their personality type. The Quant Method assessment puts people into 1 out of 4 categories. According to their site, these types include:

Thinker – “The Thinker likes facts, details, proven examples and is highly organized. Their approach to business is thoughtful, logical and analytical.”

Mastermind – “Masterminds are characterized by a more assertive approach to business. They tend to be fast-paced, results-oriented and get right to the point. They are efficient, logical and task-oriented.”

Olympian – “The Olympian personality type is characterized by an expressive, aggressive approach to business, and aspires to great heights because “everything is possible.” They are emotive and have an easy-going” love of life” approach in her personal dealings.”

Diplomat – “Diplomats are friendly, compassionate, “feeling” people that desire to contribute goodness to the lives of others. They are effective at doing this through their nurturing, insightful and encouraging nature.”

I took the test and I came out as a thinker. I assumed I’d either be that or a mastermind. The results don’t tell you how close you are to another personality type. The site claims that my results puts me into the same category as George Washington, Michael Caine, Donald Duck, Eliot Ness, and Johnny Carson. Hmmm … interesting group … especially Donald Duck. Apparently half of U.S. presidents are “thinkers”.

In the results, it listed tactics about how to appeal to this type of personality in terms of suggested sales tactics.

This company surveys customers to find out their personality type. They claim their instrument is similar to Myers-Briggs MBTI but with 1/6 the size. The thought process behind this business is that people like to deal with others that are on their same level of thinking.

Time Magazine article Get Personal with Marketing and Net More Sales reported that this Quant Method may be helpful because, “Knowing more about personality types can help you optimize email messages and websites to include specific landing pages with information that the four different personality types like in order increase conversion rates.”

While I find this to be an interesting way to market, it may be difficult to get people to respond to these assessments. When marketing to a large database, it is not feasible. I like the concept of targeting to the individual’s needs. The real trick would be to get people to actually take the assessment.

The Myers-Briggs MBTI assessment claims it can help determine whether a person is an introvert or an extravert. According to the official Myers-Briggs site, people know they are an extravert if they think things like, “I like getting my energy from active involvement in events and having a lot of different activities. I’m excited when I’m around people and I like to energize other people. I like moving into action and making things happen. I generally feel at home in the world. I often understand a problem better when I can talk out loud about it and hear what others have to say.”

I have received the training to be a qualified Myers-Briggs instructor. Whenever I have taken the MBTI assessment, my score or preference for extraversion is very high. According to these results, “I am seen as “outgoing” or as a “people person.” I feel comfortable in groups and like working in them. I have a wide range of friends and know lots of people. I sometimes jump too quickly into an activity and don’t allow enough time to think it over. Before I start a project, I sometimes forget to stop and get clear on what I want to do and why.”

Lately I’ve considered that I may be a bit of a reluctant extravert. Many of these points just do not fit me. I would say that most people that meet me would consider me outgoing. I do like to talk. I have a hard time handling “dead air”. I also like to have a lot to do. These are definitely extraverted traits. However, usually I prefer to avoid being around a lot of people. Many of the above-listed points do not really describe me at all. For example, I don’t jump into things without a great deal of thought.

Why would my score come out as having a high preference for extraversion? In my training, they explained that we can act more introverted or extraverted based on a situation. I think it can be difficult to lump people into categories or types. I think Myers-Briggs does it as well as any assessment can. However, even in the training I received, they acknowledged that we are all different. No one is always one way or another. It is about preferences. Our preference for introversion or extraversion is similar in how we prefer to be right-handed or left-handed. We might be able to write with both, but we prefer one over the other. We may be able to be outgoing or not, but we prefer one over the other.

One of the reasons I co-wrote the book It’s Not You It’s Your Personality is because I don’t think any “one” personality assessment can truly explain people. There are many theories about personality that need exploration. I felt that the Big Five, Management by Strengths, DISC, and other assessments offered some valid insight into people’s personalities. While I highly recommend learning about Myers-Briggs and the MBTI, I also think some of the other assessments are worth researching as well.

There is the possibility that any subjective, self-administered test could be manipulated. However, many of the tests have built-in detectors that try to catch inconsistent responses. For those of you who have taken these tests, you may have noticed that it seemed like they asked the same kind of questions more than once. Many of these tests reword things several different ways to determine consistency.

I took a personality test for a job as a pharmaceutical representative in the early 80’s. Because it was a sales job, I knew that they were looking for sales-related qualities. It was common sense to figure out that since I was applying for a sales position, I should use appropriate adjectives like motivated or driven to describe my personality.

The problem with lying on the personality tests is that in the end, you will end up with a job that does not really fit with what makes you happy. Also the company will end up with an employee that is not the best match for the job. In this economy, many people are willing to do whatever it takes to get any job. However, the experienced HR professional should do more than just use a personality test to determine a good candidate. These tests can be useful tools if used correctly. However, they are just one of many tools.

Dan Pink, author of several books about motivation and left vs. right brain thinking, presented a very entertaining and informative talk at a TED.com conference called Dan Pink on the Surprising Science of Motivation. The premise of his presentation was that there is a mismatch between what science knows about, and what business does, in terms of motivating people.

Two of Pink’s books include: Drive . . . The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us; and A Whole New Mind . . .Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World. After looking through his book on “right-brainers”, I found a lot of what he had to say to be quite interesting. He pointed out the importance of empathy which is a big part of emotional intelligence. For my dissertation, I studied quite a bit about empathy and the part it plays in one’s emotional intelligence. Researchers like Daniel Goleman, Ruevan Bar-On and others have shown that emotional intelligence can be developed. In this respect, what Pink had to say is good news for everyone because we can all work on becoming more empathetic.

The part of Pink’s information that may not be such good news for me and others like me is that he thinks that, as you can see from the title of his book, right-brainers will rule the world. Before reading any further, you might want to take this right or left brain quiz to find out your type. I’ll let you know that I received a 2 which means I am strongly left-brained. Not much right-brained thinking going on here!

To define the difference between left and right-brained, think of it this way: Left-brainers are sequential, logical and analytical. Right-brainers are non-linear, intuitive and holistic.

His theory supports that those with a high N or Intuitive personality type in the Myers-Briggs type indicator (MBTI) may be the ones who rule the world. The N is the opposite of the S or Sensing personality who uses their senses rather than intuition in their processing of information. In my training to become a qualified Myers Briggs instructor, I learned quite a bit about the differences between the personality types assigned by the MBTI. One of the main things researchers have found is that your MBTI results don’t change much over time. It’s about preferences . . . .like whether you prefer to write with your right or your left hand. Think of the MBTI results as your preferences for how you obtain information and this won’t change. So if you are an intuitive or an “N”, you will always be an intuitive and if you are a sensor or “S”, you will always be a sensor. Some people may be very close to the middle of the scale between S and N and so their results won’t be as cut and dry as they may find their type changes slightly when they take the MBTI.

In our book, It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I gave several examples of famous people with different MBTI results. The qualities of the right-brainer, as described by Pink, fall very much into the category of the “N” or intuitive personality portion of the 4 letter type given by MBTI. What is interesting to me is that less than half of people have an “N” or intuitive personality type according to Myers-Briggs MBTI which is close to the about 50% figure experts say are right-brained.

If our type is pretty much set in stone, then 50% of us aren’t going to rule the world! I guess I am OK with that. However, I do take solace in knowing that my MBTI personality type, ESTJ, accounts for l0-12% of the population and of that population some very big names also share that type including Sam Walton, creator of WalMart. He may not have ruled the world, but he came pretty darn close.

The Female Factor: The chart plots the collective intelligence scores of the 192 teams in the study against the percentage of women those teams contained. The red bars indicate the range of scores in the group of teams at each level, and the blue circles, the average. Teams with more women tended to fall above the average; teams with more men tended to fall below it.

Professors Anita Wooley (Carnegie Mellon) and Thomas Malone (MIT) gave “subjects aged 18 to 60 standard intelligence tests and assigned them randomly to teams. Each team was asked to complete several tasks—including brainstorming, decision making, and visual puzzles—and to solve one complex problem. Teams were given intelligence scores based on their performance. Though the teams that had members with higher IQs didn’t earn much higher scores, those that had more women did.”

Finding the right mix of people on a team has been a consideration many organizations have dealt with in the past. These researchers hope to see how this information can help teams perform better in the future through changing members or incentives.

In the past, I taught teams how to get along better through the use of the Myers Briggs MBTI personality assessment instrument. Through understanding personalities, team members could learn about each other’s preferences for how they like to obtain information. This became more useful to the team as a whole. In my training experience, I found that even if a team had members with high IQ’s, they needed to understand why other members of the teams did the things they did and required the information they required in the format that fit their needs. It was important to understand the collective needs of the team in order for the team to be successful.

With the study by Wooley and Malone, they bring up the use of their findings in understanding collective intelligence. According to Malone, “Families, companies, and cities all have collective intelligence. But as face-to-face groups get bigger, they’re less able to take advantage of their members. That suggests size could diminish group intelligence. But we suspect that technology may allow a group to get smarter as it goes from 10 people to 50 to 500 or even 5,000. Google’s harvesting of knowledge, Wikipedia’s high-quality product with almost no centralized control—these are just the beginning. What we’re starting to ask is, How can you increase the collective intelligence of companies, or countries, or the whole world?”

In 1960 Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon, wrote a popular self-help book titled Psycho-Cybernetics. This book is often listed as a classic self-help book, as motivational speakers including Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar have based some of their techniques on his work. Maltz wrote this book because he found that his patients weren’t always satisfied by the results of their plastic surgery. He felt that they had certain expectations and they were not always met.

Maltz’s book was about setting goals through visualization techniques that allow for a positive outcome. “The book introduced Maltz’s views where a person must have an accurate and positive view of his or her self before setting goals; otherwise he or she will get stuck in a continuing pattern of limiting beliefs.”

As Maltz saw it, self-image was the key to a better life. However, part of our self-image may be based on false beliefs. He felt we needed to dehypnotize ourselves from those beliefs. According to Maltz, “The self-image sets the boundaries of human accomplishment. It is the key to your personality, to your behavior, to your character. Enlarge the scope of your self-image through confidence and enlarge the scope of what you can do in this world to reach self-fulfillment.”

According to Malt’z website “Dan Kennedy, author of The New Psycho Cybernetics calls Psycho Cybernetics the original science of self improvement – and he gives three reasons for this claim:

•Its introduction of the idea of the self image – a term Maltz used to describe certain activities in the subconscious mind

•The role of psycho cybernetics as an influence in much of self improvement literature since 1960

•It offers practical techniques you can use – rather than simply philosophical principles”

Maltz’s principles are not the only ones that continue to be useful today. Check out the following top self-help and/or motivational books that have withstood the test of time:

Those interested in how personality affects performance often study the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or Emotional Intelligence (EI) and the relationship to leadership. Rarely do I run across studies that look for relationships between MBTI and EI. Leary, Reilly and Brown published a Study of Personality Preferences and Emotional Intelligence where they examined the “relationships between the dispositional factors measured by the MBTI and elements of emotional intelligence (EI) as measured by Bar-On’s emotional quotient inventory (EQ-i).”

For those unfamiliar with the MBTI and the EQ-I, the MBTI measures our preferences for how we like to receive information. The EQ-i measures our emotional quotient or EQ. Emotional intelligence has often been defined differently by various authors. One of the easiest ways to think of emotional intelligence is by defining it as the ability to understand your own emotions as well as those in others.

In the Leary et al study, their results showed a relationship between Myers Briggs extroversion and emotional intelligence components. Also noted in the study was a “positive and significant relationship between a preference for the use of feeling in decision making and an individual’s EI.”

When discussing “feeling” as defined by the MBTI, it refers to how one bases their decisions on their values. When discussing “extroversion” as defined by the MBTI, it refers to how people prefer to focus on the outer world of people and things. Leary et al concluded, “The positive and significant results for the extroversion and feeling hypotheses seem consistent with the view that EI is related to the ability to accurately perceive and manage relationships.”

I found the relationship for “feeling” to be the most interesting part of the study due to the high number of “thinking” as opposed to “feeling” executives in the workplace. The study suggests that using “feeling” when making decisions shows awareness of others’ feelings. This would be indicative of having emotional intelligence.

If there are more “thinking” people in business executive positions and this study showed people that were “feeling” had more of a relationship to emotional intelligence, what does that say about our business leaders? A study of nearly 5000 people by Sala revealed that executives may have an inflated idea of how high their emotional intelligence actually is. “The results of this study demonstrate that higher-level employees are more likely to have an inflated view of their emotional intelligence competencies and less congruence with the perceptions of others who work with them often and know them well than lower-level employees.”

What is interesting to note is that one’s MBTI type does not usually change over time. However, one can develop their emotional intelligence. The “thinking” personality type bases their decisions on data. They tend to be logical. If people with a strong “thinking” preference do not show as high of a correlation with emotional intelligence now, can they develop this based on their understanding of this data? It seems logical to conclude this is possible.

As with any self-reported data, there are possible limitations to these studies. I personally have studied emotional intelligence and its impact on sales performance. I had to take the EQ-i and the MBTI in my training to be a qualified instructor for both assessments. I came out as an ESTJ and had a high EQ-i score. I may be an anomaly, but from what I have seen from the work of Daniel Goleman and others, whether someone is a “thinking” or a “feeling” personality, it is important to always be working on one’s EQ in order to be successful.

It’s pretty hard to turn on the news lately and not see a Charlie Sheen interview. Although it is hard to determine anyone’s personality type without having them take an actual personality test, it would appear that Sheen has an ENFP personality type based on the MBTI assessment from Myers Briggs.

Sheen seems to have an extroverted or “E” personality. He takes little time to think about the answers to questions asked of him in a recent NBC Today Show Interview of Sheen. His creativity and ability to think outside the box would indicate that he is probably an intuitive or “N” personality type. It would also appear that he makes decisions based upon his own set of values so he likely has a high feeling or “F” personality type. He doesn’t seem to lack in the spontaneity department either, so he is likely a high perceiving or “P”.

If Sheen actually is an ENFP, it would make sense as this personality type does well in the arts. According to Teamtechnology.co, the ENFP enjoys, “starting discussion or activities that challenge and stimulate others into having new insights about themselves.” MyersBriggs.org describes the ENFP as, “Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency.”

Has his lifestyle changed his basic personality? According to Myers Briggs research, one’s personality preferences indicated by the MBTI do not usually change over time. That is not to say other parts of his personality may be affected, but his basic preferences for how he likes to process information probably will stay the same.

There is speculation that Sheen may be a narcissist. There is not necessarily a connection between one’s MBTI type and whether they are also a narcissist. There is some indication that Sheen has answered the question of whether he is a true narcissist. In a recent interview, Sheen used the adjective grandiose to describe himself. According to MentalHealthMatters, “Pathological narcissism is an addiction to Narcissistic Supply, the narcissist’s drug of choice. It is, therefore, not surprising that other addictive and reckless behaviors – workaholism, alcoholism, drug abuse, pathological gambling, compulsory shopping, or reckless driving – piggyback on this primary dependence. The narcissist – like other types of addicts – derives pleasure from these exploits. But they also sustain and enhance his grandiose fantasies as “unique”, “superior”, “entitled”, and “chosen”. They place him above the laws and pressures of the mundane and away from the humiliating and sobering demands of reality. They render him the centre of attention – but also place him in “splendid isolation” from the madding and inferior crowd.”

I have taken an avid interest in personality types and personality disorders. I am familiar with both Myers Briggs and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. My question is this – if someone’s personality is disordered, as in the case of Narcissism, can that personality be accurately typed? Narcissists do not have the same thought processes as the general population, and personality tests analyze thought patterns and preferences. Just curious.

That is a very interesting question. Whether one is a narcissist or not, they would still have a preferential way of processing information. For example, a person can be a narcissist as well as an introvert or extrovert.

Not much seems to be said about what appears to be Charlie Sheen’s mercurial personality traits. Borderline types are classic batterers of women. Can his violent behavior towards women be attributed solely to being narcissistic? Using The New Personality Self-Portrait as a guide, I would say that at the very least, Charlie has the Self-Confident/Mercurial portrait. From a dysfunctional perspective, then, he would be considered Narcissistic/Borderline behaviorally, which is what he has been expressing proudly for the last few months.

Charlie Sheen has the “S” stare. He is also obviously an extraverted feeler (Fe). ENFP’s are introverted feelers (Fi). You have to look passed the 4 letters and see what is introverted and extroverted. I think Charlie Sheen is an ESTP which is extroverted sensing (Se), introverted thinking (Ti), extroverted feeling (Fe) and introverted intuition (Ni).

Here is a few sentences from a reputable website about ESTP’s. “The ESTP is most comfortable when they can treat life as a big game in which they must be quick to use their skills in order to win. In such a game-playing scenario, the ESTP is most likely to be the winner, as no other personality type is as quick on their feet as the ESTP.”

They also often don’t take time to think they just respond from their extroverted sensing. Read on and I think you will be conviced that his basic personality type is the “Doer” or some call it the “Promoter.” http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ESTP_per.html

What do Oprah, Ellen and Carlin all have in common? They all have been listed as introverts according to their Myers-Briggs personality type or MBTI. Sites like MBTITypes.com list Ellen as an INFP and TypeTango.com lists Oprah as an INFJ. Other sites like PersonalityDesk.com have listed Oprah as an ENFJ. If that is the case, she may be an extrovert or close to the middle of the two. Without seeing her actual results, one can only guess.

Many people assume that people who talk for a living are extroverts. That is not necessarily true. Here are two famous examples of possible introverts. As interviewers, they would have the luxury of having their questions prepared ahead of time. This is helpful to the introvert because they wouldn’t have to spend as much time thinking about what they want to say. It would be prepared for them.

According to Myers-Briggs official site, Ellen’s INFP personality would be someone who likes to, “Seek to develop logical explanations for everything that interests them. Theoretical and abstract, interested more in ideas than in social interaction. Quiet, contained, flexible, and adaptable. Have unusual ability to focus in depth to solve problems in their area of interest. Skeptical, sometimes critical, always analytical.”

Oprah’s INFJ personality would be someone who likes to, “Seek meaning and connection in ideas, relationships, and material possessions. Want to understand what motivates people and are insightful about others. Conscientious and committed to their firm values. Develop a clear vision about how best to serve the common good. Organized and decisive in implementing their vision.”

If Oprah is in fact an ENFJ she would be, “Warmhearted, conscientious, and cooperative. Want harmony in their environment, work with determination to establish it. Like to work with others to complete tasks accurately and on time. Loyal, follow through even in small matters. Notice what others need in their day-by-day lives and try to provide it. Want to be appreciated for who they are and for what they contribute.”

When analyzing someone like Ellen, one may not usually think of comedians as being quiet or analytical. However, great comedians can be very introspective. A great example of this was George Carlin. Several sites have listed Carlin as an INTJ which would describe him as one to, “Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others.”